Alberta Music announced the winners of the final year of Project WILD - Country Artist Development on Saturday, March 26, and Strathmore’s own Dreg Gregory took home third place and $50,000.
“It was a really good night. A lot of great people in the industry were there and we had some great fans and family there, it was quite a special thing.”
To qualify for the program, Gregory had to participate in four different challenges including a charity challenge. He chose to work with Wheatland and Area Hospice Society (WAHS) where he helped raise over $65,000 for the (WAHS) through his Farming for Hospice fundraiser and raffle in 2021.
“There was also an intro video that you had to make kind of describing yourself. There's a merch challenge and a collaboration challenge.”
Gregory explained that previously this project had been held during busy harvest times so he usually did not have the time available to dedicate to it in the past. COVID-19 shifted the event to the early winter months of this year which allowed Gregory to put his all into the criteria, which paid off massively in the end.
(l-r) Drummer Dallas Clifford, Rob Pape, Drew Gregory, and manager Angie Morris. Photo courtesy of Drew Gregory. Now that he has put that big cardboard cheque in his back pocket, Gregory plans on rolling out some new music soon.
“I want to keep exploring the songwriter side of me out and then getting in the studio and putting out a fully produced project as kind of our next big goal. We did a lot of writing over the pandemic as well and we want to finish up that and then pull out a few singles."
In addition to new music Gregory is ready to get back out on the road and is planning to look at booking shows further across Canada, and possibly getting down to a few States.
A major part of artist development outside of writing and performing is developing a marketing plan. This was something that was a part of the project where each artist would plot out what they would do with the money if they won and this is definitely something that Gregory is grateful to have done.
“It's really forced us to figure out our next few years and we have some big stuff coming,” he explained.
With a show calendar filling up, a vinyl record project coming up and now planning out the next few years of his music career Gregory is set to have a busy spring which will kick off with a show in his hometown.
Gregory will be back on stage on April 8 hosting a singer-songwriter session in Standard.
The event, Nashville Night, will also include Blake Reid, Michela Sheedy, and Kyle McKearney with all proceeds going to the Standard Community Hall.
This event has been a sellout in the past and Gregory is hoping to see a full community hall this time around. Tickets can be found on Eventbrite.
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